The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Guiding adoptive parents in the right direction

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Friday, Jan 05, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Guiding adoptive parents in the right direction

J. Malarvizhi

Rene Hoksbergen is glad that domestic adoption is growing in India

CHENNAI: Rene Hoksbergen, who has worked with adopted children and their parents for the past 35 years, was in the city recently to talk to parents `about the issues of non-genetic parenthood'.

"Research shows that telling children when they are between 10 and 20 that they are adopted might just be too late. It tends to come as a shock and can break the trust between parents and child," he said.

Speak out

Instead of letting children feel that they have `lived with a lie', he suggested that parents begin telling adopted children that they are `not biological parents' as early as when they are five years old.

In most cases, such telling tends to strengthen the bond between parent and child.

He was in the city to tell aspirant adoptive parents how to do such telling and to counsel them about other difficulties they might face. Children from institutions are often emotionally deprived and might exhibit strange behaviour in the home after adoption.

If such deprivation is serious, it could inhibit the physical development of the child.

Research

Dr. Hoksbergen is a faculty member in the department of psychology at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. He gained his doctorate in adult education in 1972 and has been conducting research in the field of adoption since 1975.

His research has brought him in direct contact with emotionally deprived children and he is glad that domestic adoption is growing in India.

People adopt for medical reasons but also, increasingly, after they have had their first child. He is firmly convinced that children should grow up in the countries of their birth.

Around 3,000 Indian children have been adopted in Holland. One of them, Susanna, born in Mumbai, is the star of a documentary Dr. Hoksbergen made in 1992, screened during his interactions here.

Sequel due

He is making a sequel that has not been completed. Susanna is now 27 years old and happy but confesses to feeling a strong sense of loneliness and of being different on several occasions. Adopting parents can find associations, a few of which exist in the city, to find support groups to help with specific issues, he says.

One such group for adopting parents is SuDatta, located at Thiruvanmiyur. It can be contacted at 4215 0706 or 2002 2821.

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